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The US government has censored the broadcast media(tv, radio) since their formation. So we do have some fairly solid evidence that the US government has not wil

The US government has censored the broadcast media(tv, radio) since their formation. So we do have some fairly solid evidence that the US government has not wildly abused that power. I'm not sure this has to be an all or nothing thing. We have some reasonable protections built into the Constitution and case law that back that up. I understand your hesitation about having the government involved as there are plenty of examples of government influence on the media around the world. I share the same fears. With that said, do we really have any real world proof that the US government in recent years has over stepped its boundaries in regards to media restrictions?

deleted 8y ago
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kodablah 8y ago
We don't all publish TV content. We can see from retransmission fees for over-the-air content to the decimation of business models like Aereo what happens when content is governed. I see the Aereo business model as very similar to what's happening w/ article 13 in the EU right now. But in general I don't think you can compare broadcast mediums to bidirectional ones (e.g. words on the telephone or text on the internet).
- pjc50 8y ago
  That's not really driven by the government so much as the media companies.
  - cobbzilla 8y ago
    Big media companies have weaponized the government to serve their interests, it makes sense that social media companies will do the same. They’ll write the rules together, make the barriers to entry even higher, and pat each other on the back. Then it’s on to the next moral panic, this one’s been fixed!
  - blotter_paper 8y ago
    Strongly disagree. The spectrum of transmission is regulated and parcelled out by the government, and it could be used differently. Indeed it is, with whitespace wifi devices. The battle over how many empty adjacent channels should be required for these devices is real, and ongoing. Take away the regulation and TV broadcasters lose. People who have televisions but no working knowledge of computers lose (if spending less time on the TV is a lose). People broadcasting to each other bi-directionally, over longer distances and through thicker obstacles than the current wifi bands allow, win hugely. The media companies are intertwined with the government, sure, but this is fundamentally a government problem.
j16sdiz 8y ago
But the internet is international - no local censorship is localized. You won't want a random foreign government censor your speech.
- ionised 8y ago
  The US does it all the time. Why is okay when the US authorities shut down a site because of some bullshit DMCA violation that the rest of the world shouldn't be subject to?
joe_the_user 8y ago
The US government does have a history of cenorship - the banning of Henry Miller's novels and Wilhelm Reich's writing are the most prominent cases. The US government hasn't censor broadcast media much given that most broadcast media owned by large corporations with ties to the state themselves. And there's no reason that government wading into regulating Facebook could do anything remotely sane. A lot of Facebook's scandals have nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with filtering bias. When state agency is going to be qualified to regulate that?

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kodablah 8y ago

We don't all publish TV content. We can see from retransmission fees for over-the-air content to the decimation of business models like Aereo what happens when content is governed. I see the Aereo business model as very similar to what's happening w/ article 13 in the EU right now. But in general I don't think you can compare broadcast mediums to bidirectional ones (e.g. words on the telephone or text on the internet).

pjc50 8y ago
That's not really driven by the government so much as the media companies.
- cobbzilla 8y ago
  Big media companies have weaponized the government to serve their interests, it makes sense that social media companies will do the same. They’ll write the rules together, make the barriers to entry even higher, and pat each other on the back. Then it’s on to the next moral panic, this one’s been fixed!
- blotter_paper 8y ago
  Strongly disagree. The spectrum of transmission is regulated and parcelled out by the government, and it could be used differently. Indeed it is, with whitespace wifi devices. The battle over how many empty adjacent channels should be required for these devices is real, and ongoing. Take away the regulation and TV broadcasters lose. People who have televisions but no working knowledge of computers lose (if spending less time on the TV is a lose). People broadcasting to each other bi-directionally, over longer distances and through thicker obstacles than the current wifi bands allow, win hugely. The media companies are intertwined with the government, sure, but this is fundamentally a government problem.

j16sdiz 8y ago

But the internet is international - no local censorship is localized. You won't want a random foreign government censor your speech.

ionised 8y ago
The US does it all the time. Why is okay when the US authorities shut down a site because of some bullshit DMCA violation that the rest of the world shouldn't be subject to?

joe_the_user 8y ago

The US government does have a history of cenorship - the banning of Henry Miller's novels and Wilhelm Reich's writing are the most prominent cases. The US government hasn't censor broadcast media much given that most broadcast media owned by large corporations with ties to the state themselves. And there's no reason that government wading into regulating Facebook could do anything remotely sane. A lot of Facebook's scandals have nothing to do with censorship and everything to do with filtering bias. When state agency is going to be qualified to regulate that?